


living dead boy

by Duckyboos



Series: Profound Meetings [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Scientists, M/M, Scientist Castiel (Supernatural), Zombie Dean Winchester, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:02:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26109154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duckyboos/pseuds/Duckyboos
Summary: Castiel Novak is a researcher with a crush and a disregard for the science of life and death.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Profound Meetings [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1820488
Comments: 49
Kudos: 186





	living dead boy

**Author's Note:**

> This is a loving homage to one of my all-time favorite horror movies: Re-Animator. I rewatched it recently and could 100% see Cas as a Herbert West type. So here we are! M rating is just for the small amount of gore.

All life is a physical and chemical process. It stands to reason, then, that if one could find extremely fresh specimens and recharge that chemical process… well, then living beings could be re-animated.

With his reagent, Castiel has done plenty of work on rabbits, guinea pigs, cats, and dogs.

He has effected reanimation in dead animal tissue, therefore conquering the six to twelve-minute rule of brain death.

And now he plans to transfer his skills over to humans. 

This young man - cause of death unknown, according to his toe tag - is perfect.

Not just for reanimation and because there’s no record of any damage, but because even in death he’s strikingly beautiful; caterpillar lashes resting delicately on cinnamon dusted cheeks. His pretty lips are still plump and petal pink, his jaw has just the barest hint of a shadow.

Castiel wants him. 

He has the reagent ready to go in the syringe.

He pushes down the play and recorder buttons on his dictaphone. 

“Subject is a John Doe, approximately thirty years old, cause of death currently unknown.” Castiel lifts up the pale blue sheet to get a look at his body. Completely non-sexual, of course. “He is in peak physical condition. Dead no more than one or two hours judging by the temperature and lack of rigor mortis.”

Injecting 15 CCs of fluorescent liquid into the young man’s brainstem, Castiel cradles his head.

Fifteen seconds.

Nothing.

He increases the dosage. Another 10 CCs. He doesn’t want to overdo it.

Twenty seconds.

Thirty.

His boy’s fingers twitch. 

Castiel’s heart soars.

“Reanimation at thirty-six seconds.”

His eyelashes flutter. Green iris rings inky black pupils. 

His boy screams. Loud enough to wake the dead.

Birth is always painful. 

  
  


***

"Welcome back,” Castiel says softly once the screaming has abated. He pets his boy’s sandy-colored hair. “My name’s Castiel. Can you understand me?”

His boy makes a gurgling sound. Castiel injects another five CCs.

He waits.

  
  


***

The main problem with conducting experiments on university property is that anyone and everyone in the medical school has access to the morgue. Which is where Castiel is currently waiting for his beautiful boy to do something other than blink and shape his mouth around silent words. 

It’s all the more unfortunate when the dean of the medical school shouts along the corridor outside, “Novak, are you down here?”

Damn. 

“Err,” He glances at his zombie? Re-animation? Who is looking back at him, confused and vulnerable and Castiel’s heart aches for him. To his boy, he says, “It’s all going to be okay, I promise.” To the dean he shouts, “I’m just making some notes!”

It’s not the best excuse, but nobody (save for him) enters the morgue without having to, so hopefully it’ll be enough to keep the dean away. 

It is not. 

The immediate seconds following the dean’s appearance in the windowless morgue are mostly a blur. Firstly, Castiel is shoved aside by his boy, who rather adeptly flings the sheet to one side and jumps off the gurney, naked as the day he was (re)born. The second thing that happens is his boy rather smoothly makes his way over to dean Winchester. 

It’s at this point that things are mostly irreversible, so Castiel picks up his dictaphone, gives an account of events as they unfold. 

“Subject is moving fluidly for the re-animated, but that may be due to his being relatively fresh - no rigor mortis.” He pauses, considering, “It will be worth experimenting on a subject that is a little more...dead to test this theory.”

The dean gurgles as Castiel’s boy strangles him up against the morgue wall, loafers scrabbling to get purchase against the tiles, with no luck.

“I of course have no way of knowing how strong the subject was prior to death. He has decent muscle definition,” Castiel studiously does not watch the way his boy’s muscles move under smooth, freckled, slightly ashen skin. “But that does not necessarily denote strength. However, in re-animation, he is considerably strong, able to hold up dean Winchester’s entire body weight--” He clicks the pause button on his dictaphone, says to the purple-faced dean, “--how much would you say you weigh?”

The dean, busy dying rather dramatically, doesn’t answer him, so Castiel is left to make an educated guess. He presses the buttons down, continues speaking into the mic, “--of approximately 270-280 pounds clean off the ground by a good couple of feet.”

His boy smacks the dean’s head off the wall hard enough that the tile cracks, crimson spilling into the fissures, leaving a dark smear behind.

“Subject is getting angry that the dean is taking a long time to die.”

And so is Castiel, actually. 

There’s a bone saw on one of the nearby autopsy tables. Castiel picks it up and - careful not to startle his boy - walks over to him and the dean, who is now in the full throes of cerebral hypoxia, and taps his boy on the bare shoulder.

He turns, green eyes bright, lip curled in a snarl. 

“Here,” Castiel says, holding up the saw, “It’ll be more efficient.”

His boy takes it with a grunt, which Castiel is going to assume means thank you in zombie, and then steps back, because this will get messy.

Perhaps he should have pressed the on button, but his boy finds it eventually - which means his motor function is sufficiently intact, especially since he has kept the dean aloft this whole time - and Castiel returns to his dictaphone. 

“Subject is able to use tools with efficiency. And multi-task.”

The whirring noise gets muffled as the bone saw makes light work of cutting through the dean’s chest cavity and the organs housed within.

“It was nice knowing you, dean Winchester,” Castiel taunts as the man dies. 

Maybe it's a little vindictive, but he's been a thorn in the side of Castiel’s experiments for months now. 

Unethical? Castiel? No, the dean just has no imagination. And how he’s dead by the very thing he didn’t believe in. 

Ironic.

“Deannnnnn,” His boy says, watching the body drop to the ground. He dutifully switches the saw off and tosses it onto the body. 

Interesting. 

He turns to look at Castiel, arms down at his sides, and completely covered in blood. 

This is not going to be fun to clean up. 

"I don't suppose you eat humans as well as kill them?" At his boy's inquisitive dead-eyed stare, Castiel adds, "No, no, of course not. That would be too easy, wouldn't it? It’ll be up to me to dispose of him then. Or, we could re-animate him. Nobody would be any the wiser, he was already braindead in life--”

“Deannnn…” His boy says again, and ohhh. 

“You like that name?” Castiel asks, surmising it’s as good a choice as any. “Dean?” 

Heck, if they’re doing the trophy thing, they should go the whole way. “Dean _Winchester_?”

Dean nods jerkily, advancing on Castiel. 

It’s hard not to flinch even though Castiel knows Dean bears him no ill-will. Quite the opposite, apparently. Once Dean is right in front of him, he reaches up to cup Castiel’s jaw with an iron-scented palm, “Casssssss….”

Castiel feels a small burst of pride. His boy is so smart.

“Hello, Dean.”


End file.
